Out of the walled court of Judaism, faith in the heart of a Gentile

Hence, after this, we find the Spirit acting in the heart of a
Gentile (Luke 7). That heart manifested more faith than any among
the children of Israel. Humble in heart, and loving the people of
God, as such, for the sake of God, whose people they were, and thus
raised in his affections above their practical wretched state, he
can see in Jesus One who had authority over everything, even as he
himself had over his soldiers and servants. He knew nothing of the
Messiah, but he recognised in Jesus* the power of God. This was not
mere idea; it was faith. There was no such faith in Israel.

{*We have seen this to be precisely the subject of the Holy
Ghost in our Gospel.}

Power exercised to raise the dead: all things new

The Lord then acts with a power which was to be the source of
that which is new for man. He raises the dead. This was indeed
going beyond the pale of the ordinances of the law. He has
compassion on the affliction and misery of man. Death was a burden
to him: Jesus delivers him from it. It was not only cleansing a
leprous Israelite, nor pardoning and healing believers among His
people; He restores life to one who had lost it. Israel, no doubt,
will profit by it; but the power necessary to the accomplishment of
this work is that which makes all things new wherever it may
be.

The relative positions of John the Baptist and Christ; the Lord's testimony to John

The change of which we speak, and which these two examples so
strikingly illustrate, is brought out in treating of the connection
between Christ and John the Baptist, who sends to learn from the
Lord's own mouth who He is. John had heard of His miracles, and
sends his disciples to learn who it was that wrought
them. Naturally the Messiah, in the exercise of His power, would
have delivered him from prison. Was He the Messiah? or was John to
wait for another? He had faith enough to depend on the answer of
One who wrought these miracles; but, shut up in prison, his mind
desired something more positive. This circumstance, brought about
by God, gives rise to an explanation respecting the relative
position of John and Jesus. The Lord does not here receive
testimony from John. John was to receive Christ upon the testimony
He gave of Himself; and that as having taken a position which would
offend those who judged according to Jewish and carnal ideas -- a
position which required faith in a divine testimony, and,
consequently, surrounded itself with those whom a moral change had
enabled to appreciate this testimony. The Lord, in reply to John's
messengers, works miracles which prove the power of God present in
grace and service rendered to the poor; and declares that blessed
is he who is not offended at the humble position He had taken in
order to accomplish it. But He gives testimony to John, if He will
receive none from him. He had attracted the attention of the
people, and with reason; he was more than a prophet -- he had
prepared the way of the Lord Himself. Nevertheless, if he prepared
the way, the immense and complete change to be made was not itself
accomplished. John's ministry, by its very nature, put him outside
the effect of this change. He went before it to announce the One
who would accomplish it, whose presence would bring in its power on
the earth. The least therefore in the kingdom was greater than
he.

The people's reception of John and the Lord

The people, who had received with humility the word sent by John
the Baptist, bore testimony in their heart to the ways and the
wisdom of God. Those who trusted in themselves rejected the
counsels of God accomplished in Christ. The Lord, on this, declares
plainly what their condition is. They rejected alike the warnings
and the grace of God. The children of wisdom (those in whom the
wisdom of God wrought) acknowledged and gave glory to it in its
ways. This is the history of the reception both of John and of
Jesus. The wisdom of man denounced the ways of God. The righteous
severity of His testimony against evil, against the condition of
His people, showed to man's eyes the influence of a devil. The
perfection of His grace, condescending to poor sinners, and
presenting itself to them where they were, was the wallowing in sin
and the making oneself known by one's associates. Proud
self-righteousness could bear neither. The wisdom of God would be
owned by those who were taught by it, and by those alone.

God's ways towards sinners in contrast with the Pharisaic spirit

Thereupon these ways of God towards the most wretched sinners,
and their effect, in contrast with this pharisaic spirit, are
shown, in the history of the woman who was a sinner in the
Pharisee's house; and a pardon is revealed, not with reference to
the government of God in the earth on behalf of His people (a
government with which the healing of an Israelite under God's
discipline was connected), but an absolute pardon, involving peace
to the soul, is granted to the most miserable of sinners. It was
not here merely the question of a prophet. The Pharisee's
self-righteousness could not discern even that.

The child of wisdom

We have a soul that loves God, and much, because God is love --
a soul that has learnt this with regard to, and by means of, its
own sins, though not yet knowing forgiveness, in seeing Jesus. This
is grace. Nothing more touching than the way in which the Lord
shows the presence of those qualities which made this woman now
truly excellent -- qualities connected with the discernment of His
Person by faith. In her were found divine understanding of the
Person of Christ, not reasoned out indeed in doctrine but felt in
its effect in her heart, deep sense of her own sin, humility, love
for that which was good, devotedness to Him who was
good. Everything showed a heart in which reigned sentiments proper
to relationship with God -- sentiments that flowed from His
presence revealed in the heart, because He had made Himself known
to it. This, however, is not the place to dwell upon them; but it
is important to remark that which has great moral value, when what
a free pardon really is is to be set forth, that the exercise of
grace on God's part creates (when received into the heart)
sentiments corresponding to itself, and which nothing else can
produce; and that these sentiments are in connection with that
grace, and with the sense of sin it produces. It gives a deep
consciousness of sin, but it is in connection with the sense of God
-- goodness; and the two feelings increase in mutual
proportion. The new thing, sovereign grace, can alone produce these
qualities, which answer to the nature of God Himself, whose true
character the heart has apprehended, and with whom it is in
communion; and that, while judging sin as it deserves in the
presence of such a God.

The hearts of the Pharisee, the sinner, and of God manifested in grace

It will be observed, that this is connected with the knowledge
of Christ Himself, who is the manifestation of this character; the
true source by grace of the feeling of this broken heart; and also
that the knowledge of her pardon comes afterward.* It is grace --
it is Jesus Himself -- His Person -- that attracts this woman and
produces the moral effect. She goes away in peace when she
understands the extent of grace in the pardon which He pronounces.
And the pardon itself has its force in her mind, in that Jesus was
everything to her. If He forgave, she was satisfied. Without
accounting for it to herself, it was God revealed to her heart; it
was not self-approval, nor the judgment others might form of the
change wrought in her. Grace had so taken possession of her heart
-- grace personified in Jesus -- God was so manifested to her, that
His approval in grace, His forgiveness, carried everything else
with it. If He was satisfied, so was she. She had all in attaching
this importance to Christ. Grace delights to bless, and the soul
that attaches importance enough to Christ is content with the
blessing it bestows. How striking is the firmness with which grace
asserts itself, and does not fear to withstand the judgment of man
who despises it! It takes unhesitatingly the part of the poor
sinner whom it has touched. Man's judgment only proves that he
neither knows nor appreciates God in the most perfect manifestation
of His nature. To man, with all his wisdom, it is but a poor
preacher, who deceives himself in passing for a prophet, and to
whom it is not worth while to give a little water for his feet. To
the believer it is perfect and divine love, it is perfect peace if
he has faith in Christ. Its fruits are not yet before man; they are
before God, if Christ is appreciated. And he who appreciates Him
thinks neither of himself nor of his fruits (except of the bad),
but of the One who was the testimony of grace to his heart when he
was nothing but a sinner.

{*To explain the expression, "Her sins are forgiven, for she
loved much," we must distinguish between grace revealed in the
Person of Jesus, and the pardon He announced to those whom the
grace had reached. The Lord is able to make this pardon known. He
reveals it to the poor woman. But it was that which she had seen in
Jesus Himself, which, by grace, melted her heart and produced the
love she had to Him -- the seeing what He was for sinners like
herself. She thinks only of Him: He has taken possession of her
heart so as to shut out other influences. Hearing that He is there,
she goes into the house of this proud man, without thinking of
anything but the fact that Jesus is there. His presence answered,
or prevented, every question. She saw what He was for a sinner, and
that the most wretched and disgraced found a resource in Him; she
felt her sins in the way that this perfect grace, which opens the
heart and wins confidence, causes them to be felt; and she loved
much. Grace in Christ had produced its effect. She loved because of
His love. This is the reason that the Lord says, "Her sins are
forgiven, because she loved much." It was not that her love was
meritorious for this, but that God revealed the glorious fact that
the sins -- be they ever so numerous and abominable -- of one whose
heart was turned to God were fully pardoned. There are many whose
hearts are turned to God, and who love Jesus, that do not know
this. Jesus pronounces on their case with authority -- sends them
away in peace. It is a revelation -- and answer -- to the wants and
affections produced in the heart made penitent by grace revealed in
the Person of Christ. If God manifests Himself in this world, and
with such love, He must needs set aside in the heart every other
consideration. And thus, without being aware of it, this poor woman
was the only one who acted suitably in those circumstances; for she
appreciated the all-importance of the One who was there. A
Saviour-God being present, of what importance was Simon and his
house? Jesus caused all else to be forgotten. Let us remember
this. The beginning of man's fall was loss of confidence in God, by
the seducing suggestion of Satan that God had kept back what would
make man like God. Confidence in God lost, man seeks, in the
exercise of his own will, to make himself happy: lusts, sin,
transgression follow. Christ is God in infinite love, winning back
the confidence of man's heart to God. Removal of guilt, and power
to live to God, are another thing, and found in their own place
through Christ, as pardon comes in its place here. But the poor
woman, through grace, had felt that there was one heart she could
trust, if none else; but that was God's. God is light and God is
love. These are the two essential names of God, and in every true
case of conversion both are found. In the cross they meet; sin is
brought fully into the light, but in that by which love is fully
known. So in the heart light reveals sin, that is God as light
does, but the light is there by perfect love. The God who shows the
sins is there in perfect love to do it. Christ was this in this
world. Revealing Himself, He must be both; so Christ was love in
the world, but the light of it. So in the heart. The love through
grace gives confidence, and thus the light is gladly let in, and in
the confidence in the love, and seeing self in the light, the heart
has wholly met God's heart: so with this poor woman. This is where
the heart of man and God always and alone meet. The Pharisee had
neither. Pitch dark, neither love nor light were there. He had God
manifest in the flesh in his house and saw nothing -- only settled
that He was not a prophet. It is a wondrous scene to see these
three hearts. Man's as such resting on false human righteousness,
God's, and the poor sinner's -- fully meeting it as God did
hers. Who was the child of wisdom? for it is a commentary on that
expression. And note, though Christ had said nothing of it, but
bowed to the slight, yet He was not insensible to the neglect which
had not met Him with the common courtesies of life. To Simon He was
a poor preacher, whose pretensions he could judge, certainly not a
prophet; for the poor woman, God in love, and bringing her heart
into unison with His as to her sins and as to herself, for love was
trusted in. Note, too, this clinging to Jesus is where true light
is found: here the fruitful revelation of the gospel; to Mary
Magdalene, as to the highest privilege of saints.}

This is the new thing -- grace, and even its fruits in their
perfection: the heart of God manifested in grace, and the heart of
man -- a sinner -- responding to it by grace, having apprehended,
or rather having been apprehended by, the perfect manifestation of
that grace in Christ.